The 26 new places in the Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants

Bar Agricole seamlessly blends a bar vibe with great food. John Storey/The San Francisco Chronicle

Sunday is the day I work toward all year — it’s the publication of my Top 100 Bay Area Restaurants guide. I’ve been compiling the annual list for 16 years, and I become more frantic as I get closer to the deadline and have to finish visiting the new places under consideration and returning to ones from the previous list to see if they still pass muster.

This year was particularly challenging. As I’ve mentioned before, 2010 was the best year for restaurant openings in at least 25 years. In addition a lot of established restaurants that hadn’t made the list in previous years upped their game and deserved inclusion.

I started with a list of 35 new restaurants that warranted consideration, and at the end I settled on 26. Still, that means a lot places have to be ousted from the list to make room. Many of the ones I dropped were just as good as ever, but others were either a little better or offered something different.

I tried my best to think of ways to include more. At one time I thought of not including the four-star restaurants, simply acknowledging them in a separate box. However, in the end that didn’t seem right. I also thought of increasing the number, but the Top 110 or the Top 125 just didn’t sound right. After much dithering — with the art department breathing down my neck because the designers needed the final list to create the cover — I whittled the list from 110 to 101. Then when I got the do-or-die call from the art director, I cut one more.

It was painful because I actually ended up jettisoning some favorites. But enough of the casualties — I’ll tell you about those next week.

Today I’d like to reveal the 26 restaurants that are new to the list this year. They’re in San Francisco unless otherwise noted.

They are:

Benu sets a new standard in fine dining. Brant Ward/The San Francisco Chronicle

A Cote, Oakland

Absinthe

Angele, Napa

Bar Agricole

Benu

Bistro Aix

Bourbon Steak

Commonwealth

Cotogna

Farallon

Fifth Floor

Gitane

Ippuku, Berkeley

Mamacita

Marlowe

Mission Chinese Food

Prospect may be the little sister of Boulevard, but it feels all grown up. Lacy Atkins/The San Francisco Chronicle

Morimoto, Napa

Oenotri, Napa

Plum, Oakland

Prospect

Ristobar

Saison

Station 1, Woodside

Ubuntu, Napa

Waterbar

Zero Zero

You can pick up your copy on Sunday, April 3; the guide will be published in The Chronicle Magazine.